Christmas Bodyguard (4 page)

Joshua stepped next to him. “There are other reasons why someone would be in here. I'm going to do a sweep for bugs. I'll check your phones for any, too. I have my equipment out in the car.”

Elizabeth joined them in the foyer while Mary and
Abbey remained in the living room, sitting on the couch. “Your daughter wants to go up to her room.”

“That's fine. Would you go with her and check it first? I looked in and didn't see anything, but a more thorough search would be better.” Slade peered toward his daughter who sat with her shoulders hunched, her chin resting on her chest. “Then I'd like to meet with you and Joshua in my office.”

 

Elizabeth stepped into Abbey's bathroom and surveyed the luxurious room done in beige marble with accents of forest green. Making the rounds, she opened and closed each cabinet and drawer, then headed back into the large bedroom. She checked for likely places someone would put a listening device, even though Joshua would do a more thorough scan of the whole house later.

Abbey stood in the middle with her arms folded over her chest and a glare on her face. “Don't forget under the bed.”

“I won't.” Elizabeth inspected the walk-in closet, twice as big as her bathroom at Joshua's.

“Oh, and I have a balcony.”

Elizabeth left the closet, shutting the door. “That's a great suggestion,” she said in the calmest voice she could muster. Teenage kids could be the most difficult to guard. They didn't like their privacy being invaded even for a good reason. She'd dealt with teens before, and she would deal with Abbey. The best way was to try to win her over, which might not be easy if her pout was any indication.

Before reaching the balcony, Elizabeth opened each drawer in her dresser, felt around, then shut it. The top one held a journal. Her fingers brushed over the bound book with horses on the front.

Abbey rushed toward her and snatched the journal out
of the drawer. “That's private. Don't touch it.” She glared at Elizabeth and hugged the book to her chest.

“I wouldn't look in it.” She could remember the diary she'd kept as a teenager—many pages of angst. “Do you see anything missing or moved?”

Skimming her look over her possessions, Abbey backed away. She returned her razor-sharp attention to Elizabeth. “No.”

Elizabeth swung open the French doors that led to the balcony and moved out into the December air, a stiff wind blowing the strands of her hair. Ten by ten with no easy access. Still, she would have Joshua wire the doors with sensors and secure them better.

True to her word, when she was back in the room she knelt on plush white carpet next to the king-size, dark-oak canopy bed with a hot-pink satin coverlet and looked under it. Nothing there but a single tennis shoe and one red sock.

When she rose, she peered at Abbey—the girl's posture was defensive, one hand quivering when she raised it to sweep her long brown hair behind her shoulders. The dark circles under the teen's eyes attested to the toll the past few days had taken on her. Something softened in Elizabeth. For a few seconds she recalled her own past fear, the feeling that the circumstances around her controlled her life. “All clear,” she said to reassure Abbey.

“Oh, good, I'm relieved to know there are no monsters under it. I quit looking for them when I was eight.”

“I know this can't be easy, but I'm here to help you.”

“Don't pretend you know what this feels like. I'm a prisoner.”

Elizabeth panned the room that lacked nothing, from a big-screen TV to a state-of-the art computer and sound system. “Not too bad a cell.”

Abbey snorted. “Are you satisfied everything is okay? I'd like to be alone, if that's all right. Surely I can be alone in my own cell—I mean, bedroom.”

“I'll be downstairs in your dad's office.”

“Oh, good. That's right below me. I'll stomp on the floor if I need you.”

As Elizabeth made her way down to Slade's office, she clung to the image of Abbey out on the porch. A young girl on the verge of falling apart and trying desperately not to—even using anger to keep herself together. Elizabeth did know what that felt like. But at least Abbey's father had been right there for her. The love and worry in his expression reached out to Elizabeth and gripped her heart. How many times had she prayed to see something like that on her own father's face?

She rapped on the office door. When she heard Slade say, “Enter,” she went inside. He sat in a chair behind his desk, swiveled around to face a large window that framed two horses frolicking in the pasture.

“Right now I can't remember a time when I spent a day just playing, with not a worry in the world.”

The weariness in his voice beckoned her forward. “It's been a while for me, too.” Even as a child she'd never felt totally free to be herself, to enjoy life without a concern. The thought made loneliness creep into her heart.

He rotated his chair around. His gaze snagged hers, intensity in his gray eyes and something else—vulnerability—that reached out to her, linking them. Her pulse reacted by speeding through her.

“I guess that's a price we pay when we grow up.” He cocked a corner of his mouth in a half grin that faded almost instantly. “But my daughter shouldn't have to worry about it quite yet.”

The appeal in those startling eyes, storm-filled at the
moment, touched a place in her heart that she'd kept firmly closed for years. She wrenched her look away and swept around in a full circle. “Nice office.” Which was putting it mildly. From a huge mahogany desk with a large-screen computer to the sumptuous brown leather grouping along one side of the room to the floor-to-ceiling bookcases on the other wall, the office was luxurious to the extreme.

He rose. “Let's have a seat over there where it's comfortable. Joshua's doing a walk-through with Mary. How was Abbey?”

“Not a happy camper.”

“I figured that. When she gets scared, she gets angry. The first year after her mother died, I thought my home was a war zone. Thankfully, she began to accept her mother's death, and I nearly had my daughter back. Then she hit puberty. Everything changed. Did I tell you I don't like change?”

“I'll tell you a secret. Neither do I.”

“How do you do what you do?”

“One assignment at a time. It's important for me to keep my focus on the present.” And she had to remember that. No more journeys into her past.

He took one end of the couch and beckoned her to sit at the other end. “I'm glad it's Tuesday. I have the Thanksgiving holidays before Abbey goes back to school to get things worked out. It'll give you two some time to get to know each other. To get her used to you being around.”

“We'll get into a routine. That should help.”

At that moment Uncle Joshua entered with Slade's mother-in-law, a woman in her early sixties with short silver hair and dark brown eyes. She came to right above Joshua's shoulders, and he was well over six feet tall.

Dressed in stylish tan slacks and a matching jacket and a white tailored blouse, Mary grasped the back of one of
the chairs in the grouping while Joshua folded his long length into the opposite one. “Hilda is still shaken up in the kitchen,” she said. “I'll be in there if you need me.”

“I appreciate the tour, Mary.” Joshua grinned, his look fastened onto the older woman.

Mary's cheeks colored a pink shade as she scurried from the room.

Joshua chuckled. “I don't think she's too comfortable with everything.”

“She hasn't had much time to assimilate what's going on. I only called her a few hours ago to tell her my plans. Until then, all she thought was that we'd had a blowout on Saturday. She's lived a pretty sheltered life, especially here at the ranch.” Slade shifted on the couch as though he couldn't get settled. “I thought we should talk about some kind of game plan.”

Joshua tapped his fingers on the arm of the chair, something he did when he was impatient to get to work. “As I told you before, I want to check for listening devices, then talk to the people who put in your security system.”

“I want to get a feel for the house and the surrounding area. Meet the people who work for you besides Hilda.” Elizabeth captured Slade's attention. “Everyone.”

“That's fine. I can introduce—”

A scream from above ripped through the house, followed by a thud.

T
he scream coming from his daughter slammed Slade's heart against his chest. He bolted to his feet and rushed for the door. Elizabeth wrenched it open a few strides in front of him.

The silence that followed Abbey's shriek quickened his pace. Bounding up the stairs, Elizabeth pulled her gun from her holster. Several steps back, Joshua withdrew his, too. The sight of the weapons sent ice through Slade's veins.

At the top of the staircase, Slade surged around Elizabeth, determined to get to Abbey. Thoughts of what could be happening raced through his mind, threatening to paralyze him. He silenced them and kept going down the long hallway to Abbey's room at the end—the longest fifteen yards he'd ever covered.

Nearing his daughter's bedroom, Elizabeth clamped her hand on his elbow. “Let me go in first.”

Common sense told him to agree, but the father in him couldn't. Shaking off her grasp, he increased his speed and shoved open the door, charging inside. He came to a halt a few feet in. Abbey stood in front of her computer, the chair toppled over behind her. Her face bleached of color, she twisted toward him. Her mouth opened but no sound came from it.

Ignoring Joshua and Elizabeth behind him, he crossed the room and clasped his daughter's arms. “What's wrong?”

Tears flooded her wide eyes. “My computer.” She launched herself at him and clung to him, her whole body trembling.

Slade swung his gaze to the computer. The sight on it curdled his gut. The screen was totally black except for Abbey's name written across it in a font that looked like blood that dripped and pooled at the bottom. The horror of what he saw and its implication took over, erasing all thoughts.

Abbey's sobs against his chest finally brought him out of his daze. He tried to move her away, but she remained rooted to the floor, clutching him as though he were her life preserver. “Honey, what happened?” he whispered against her hair.

For a long moment she continued to cry. Then, slowly she quieted, gulping in shallow breaths that finally deepened. Her body still quaking, she drew back, her eyes glistening with her tears. “I turned on my computer, and that is what popped up on the screen. How? Why?”

He glanced again at the computer, chilled at what he saw. When Abbey started to look at it, he blocked her view. “I don't know, but I intend to find out.”

“Slade? Abbey? What's going on?” Mary stood in the entrance to his daughter's bedroom, her forehead creased with worry.

“We'll look into this,” Elizabeth said, stepping forward.

“Why don't you take Abbey out of here?”

Slade peered at her, hearing the words but not registering them for a few seconds. She'd holstered her gun, as had Joshua, but that didn't lessen the implication that someone had possibly been in Abbey's room and that the maniac, as
Abbey called him, was involved in what happened earlier. Elizabeth was right. Abbey needed to leave.

“Come on, Abbey. Let's go downstairs and let Elizabeth and Joshua check this out.”

“Daddy?”

Her tears welled up and ran down her cheeks. Seeing them and feeling so helpless broke Slade's heart. He wound his arm around her shoulder and walked her toward Mary. His mother-in-law's expression grew more concerned when she caught sight of Abbey's face, her shaking body.

As he left with them, Slade threw a glance at Elizabeth. “I want answers.” Because no matter what, he would find the maniac and make him pay for what he was doing to Abbey.

 

“I want answers, too,” Elizabeth said to Joshua after the trio left them alone in Abbey's bedroom. “Was this the point of the break-in earlier? To put something on her computer?”

“A scare tactic? Could be.”

“It worked. Abbey was scared.” And the expression in Slade's eyes spoke of his fear but also his fury, barely contained. The urge to comfort him stunned Elizabeth. She didn't get emotionally involved in her assignments, and yet she couldn't get his earlier expression of fear and fury out of her mind.

“I have a tech consultant I use. I'll call him out here to see if it was loaded in from here or if somehow the person hacked into Abbey's computer.” Joshua dug into his pocket for his cell.

“So let's leave this alone and get him out here.”

“Then I need to secure this place. Slade's security system isn't state-of-the art. I've found a lot of things that need beefing up, and I'm not even done with the assessment.”
He punched a number into the phone, but hadn't yet placed the call when Slade returned.

“I can find out how it got on Abbey's computer. I'm pretty sure it had to be placed there physically, because my firewall on the computer system we use here is top-notch, but I know how to find out for sure.”

“Okay, then I'll leave you here to check it out. I have work to do on the rest of the house.” Joshua left the bedroom.

“Where's Abbey?”

“She's lying down in Mary's suite. I explained to Mary what happened and that I would be in here.” Slade righted the chair and sat in front of the computer.

As his fingers flew over the keys, the black screen with Abbey's name disappeared to be replaced with an entry box. Listening to him mumble to himself, as though he were coaxing the computer to give him the right answers, Elizabeth couldn't help admiring his skills—ones she lacked.

After a minute of watching him go from one area to another, she began to walk around the room, trying to imagine the intruder in the room. Although she'd checked the area out earlier, she did again, praying she hadn't missed anything obvious. If the person had come in here to put that on the computer, why had he risked doing it? What was his objective? Was there anything else he did in the house? One question after another tumbled through her mind, each leaving her with a bad feeling about the situation.

So far, it wasn't motivated by the need for money. Malice seemed to lay behind the person's actions. A score to settle? Very possibly.

Stepping out on the balcony again, Elizabeth swept her gaze over the landscape. In the distance she glimpsed a
black barn. A woman with curly blonde hair exited it. A man wearing a black cowboy hat, boots and jeans led a horse from the barn. The woman whirled around and kissed the wrangler on the mouth before she headed away in the opposite direction. Seeing the two reinforced Elizabeth's need to meet each person who worked at the ranch. She didn't know who belonged and who didn't.

Going back inside, she left Slade inputting on the computer while she went to Mary's suite to check on Abbey. Mary's living quarters were next to her room. She knocked on its door and waited.

When Slade's mother-in-law let her into the sitting room, Elizabeth surveyed the beautifully decorated area, noting the entrance to the bedroom off to the left. “Is Abbey in there?”

Mary nodded.

Elizabeth strode to the open doorway and peeked in. The teenager lay on a huge king size sleigh bed, curled up in a ball, her eyes closed.

“She's exhausted,” Mary whispered behind Elizabeth and pulled the door closed before facing her. “I'm so worried about her. First the wreck and now this. What could make a person so vile that he'd want to harm my family? I feel helpless. I'm so glad Slade hired you to watch out for Abbey. If Kyra recommends you, then that's all I need to know. You'll do your best. My daughter and Kyra were best friends in high school. Inseparable.”

Elizabeth journeyed back to her days in high school and couldn't remember having a friend like that. Her father didn't like her bringing friends home, and he didn't allow her to participate in many activities because her studies were too important. She had to be at the top of her class, and if she wasn't, he let her know how disappointed he was
in her. A mental shake rid her mind of those memories. She couldn't afford to get sidetracked on this job.

“I'll do my best, Mrs. Bradley.”

“Mary. We've never stood on formality at this ranch.”

She recalled the cowboy and the blonde earlier. “I haven't had a chance to ask Slade yet, but who besides Hilda works in the house?”

“Hilda's daughter comes in three times a week to help her mother clean.”

“Does Hilda live here?”

“Yes, and she's been a dear friend since I came here.” Mary frowned. “She doesn't have anything to do with this. You're wasting your time going down that trail.”

“I have to consider everything, even what seems unlikely, if for no other reason than to rule it out.” She didn't tell Mary that she hadn't ruled out Hilda yet. It was safer to suspect everyone.

“I know, dear, but she's been with the family since Abbey was born.”

“Who left first today, you or Hilda?”

“She did. This is her day to go into town and run all her errands. Most times she is gone for hours.”

“Does she do it every Tuesday?”

Mary tilted her head. “Why, yes, she does.”

“Do you usually go to church on Tuesday?”

“No, I usually work at home putting together the church bulletin. I hole myself up in Slade's office, but the secretary needed help at church today so I put it off. Her husband fell and needed to go to the doctor.”

“So Hilda expected you to be here?”

Mary nodded.

“When you left, you turned the alarm on?”

Her eyebrows crunched together as Mary peered over Elizabeth's shoulder. “I'm sure I did. I know I was in a
hurry to get to church, but I don't think I forgot.” Her gaze returned to Elizabeth's face. “Do you think I left the house open?”

“I don't know, but the door was open and the alarm didn't go off.”

Mary's eyes widened. She brought her hand up to cover her mouth. “Oh, no.”

Elizabeth hated seeing the woman's look of regret and patted her arm. “That's only one possible explanation.”

“What else could explain it?”

“Someone knows the alarm code and has a key to the house. Or someone was already in the house when you left and turned the alarm off.”

“They would have to know the code.”

“True. How many people know it?”

“I'm not sure.”

“Have you changed it lately?”

“No, I haven't.” Slade's deep voice sounded from the doorway.

Elizabeth spun around to face him, her heart reacting to his commanding presence. “When was the last time you did?”

“Not since I moved in.”

“Then I would change it right away and not give it out.”

“Certain people need to have it.”

“Who?”

“Hilda, Abbey, Mary and Jake.”

“Isn't Jake your foreman? Why him?”

“My office here is also the office for the ranch. He comes up here to work several days a week. I suppose we'll have to make different arrangements since I'll be working from home for the time being.” He looked toward Mary.

“Is Abbey still lying down?”

His mother-in-law eased the door into the bedroom open, then closed it quietly. “Yes.”

“Good. Elizabeth and I need to talk. Can you keep an eye on Abbey? I don't want her to wake up alone.”

“She won't.” Mary bent over and grabbed a knitting bag, then ambled into the other room.

“What did you find on the computer?” Elizabeth asked as they left Mary's suite.

“Someone physically put it on the computer, which means he was in the house.” He strode to the staircase and descended. “We need to finish our strategy meeting from earlier. Can you find your uncle and meet me in my office while I go change the alarm code?”

“Yes.” Elizabeth parted from him in the foyer in search of Uncle Joshua.

She found him in the kitchen talking with Hilda. “Slade wants to meet with us in his office.”

“Okay,” he said before turning his focus back to Hilda.

“Jones Cartwright and his men will be here soon to replace the doors and locks. I'd appreciate it if you would let them in and then let me know.”

Hilda nodded. “I can do that. Anything else I can do just tell me.”

When they left the kitchen, Elizabeth chuckled. “What have you been telling her? Stories of your days on the police force?”

Joshua grunted. “I don't have time for that, but it's important to get the cooperation of the members of the staff and family. We don't know what's going on here.”

“Slade discovered someone was in Abbey's bedroom. That's how that image got on her computer.”

“I was hoping that wasn't the case.”

“Yeah, we've got to shut down this person's access to the house.”

“And check the people who work for Slade.”

“And have been here in the past month or two, especially anyone new.”

“Which means all his employees here at the ranch.” Joshua pushed open the door to Slade's office, and Elizabeth entered first to find Slade staring out the large window behind his desk.

“I'm thinking of moving my desk away from the window.” Slade rotated toward them.

“Wouldn't hurt.” Joshua took the chair he'd occupied an hour ago. “I'd keep exposure limited, if possible. We can look at using bullet-resistant glass where necessary if you want.”

“I'm already beginning to feel like my daughter. That we're living in a prison.” Slade skirted his desk and took a seat on the couch, leaning back. But there was nothing casual or at ease about his posture. Rigidity locked his muscles in place. Even his hands were fisted. “I need this place secure as soon as possible, so whatever you think is best, do it.”

“The good thing is, we can do a lot to enhance your present system, such as a control panel that handles your downstairs needs and one for your upstairs.” Joshua looked down at the pad he held. “Add laser beams, put more sensors around to cover every door and window, new locks and sturdier doors. I'm taking care of that today. For the alarm system, change your code weekly. Don't give it out to anyone but the people who live in the house or need to know. Keep that list short.”